2013: A Black Metal Year in Review

2013 was a year full of ups and downs for me, personally; this blog actually seems to be getting some attention, and I am getting to use it to help get the word out on some of my friends’ projects, which is cool. I have also been investigating the Twin Cities metal and punk scenes, which has made me lots of new friends and has ensured that I have seen a staggering amount of live music this year, particularly this summer. Burning Fist is publishing some of my reviews, which is totally amazing, and I still have other reviews on the table for other people, not to mention the ones I have yet to finish for this (Inquisition?). I have also finally melted down in pretty much the most awful anxiety-ridden puddle of despair that I’ve been in, which is impressive, considering the past couple of years, and I’m finally starting to claw my way out of that. That, mixed with taking on entirely too much this past semester because I might be an idiot, has ensured that I am way behind on updating, and that I have neglected this blog far more than I would have liked in the past year. But no more. I’m going to fix that. Next semester shall be less crazy, and I still have a pile of new albums I’d like to blather about.

Anyway, things have also been broiling in the black metal world lately. Between more run ins with the law, attention being paid to great underground bands, and the past rearing it’s head, a lot has happened in 2013. So without further ado, enough about me. Let’s talk about…

20 Year Album Anniversaries

This year contained the anniversary years of a lot of amazing albums. Some of the heaviest hitters, of course, being Immortal’s Pure Holocaust and Darkthrone’s A Blaze In the Northern Sky (the latter has been spinning in my car lately, it being Minnesota and winter and all). Next year, of course, will see the 20^th anniversary of De Mysteriis Dom Sathanas. May have to get myself a vinyl of that to celebrate (and by may, I mean, will, of course).

Obscure, Fantastic Black Metal is Seeping Into the States

Maryland Deathfest has just been an absolute hotbed for great black metal lately, and obscure stuff, too. This past year saw Aosoth and Antaeus playing sets on the same day (poor guys must have been exhausted. I was exhausted, and I was just watching them), along with fellow countrymen Glorior Belli and the incredible Ascension, whom I had never before heard of and stand very much corrected. Upcoming in 2014, MDF has plans to host Mgla, Enthroned, and Taake, just to name a few. Hopefully Hoest can stay out of trouble for long enough to play a set in Baltimore, and hopefully he will have pants (dear god, let him have pants. I’ve already seen more of that guy than I want to).

Black Metal Pop Culture Is At Its Height

Black metal is gaining popularity outside the underground, for better or worse (hipsters are the new core kids, I ‘spose). However, this is not always a bad thing. Vegan Black Metal Chef, for instance, is working on a cookbook, and metal cookbooks are the best. Likewise, we got a multi-part web documentary on one man black metal projects that was quite illuminating. While the fascination of those whom Nathan Explosion would refer to as “regular jackoffs” has resulted in such happenings as the short film on black metal that aired early this year that I ultimately decided I couldn’t be okay with, this interest in black metal has also resulted in such awesomeness as the brand spanking new book, Black Metal: Evolution of the Cult. My copy just arrived in my hot little hands today, and my, if it doesn’t seem like a treasure trove. Have already heard great reviews from a trusted source on the Mayhem bits, and anyone who actually sees fit to provide Funeral Mist with their deserved place in the canon has my full attention. Looking forward to devouring this thing in the time left before school starts. And speaking of Funeral Mist…

Funeral Mist is Alive

It lives! Arioch has seen fit to bless his followers with a box set that is pretty much of epic proportions. I am going to do an actual in depth review of the thing soon, but for the time being, suffice it to say that it is an extremely nice edition, and the sound is much improved, at least from the CDs that I have. Trisagion is a beautiful thing, not least of all because it is proof that Funeral Mist is still alive and kicking, at least for a while longer.

Varg Gets, Predictably, and Actually Seemingly Unfairly, Arrested. Again.

Back in July of this year, infamous murdering racist creepy DnD-picture-staging weirdo Varg Vikernes was arrested, again, along with his wife. Vikernes was stockpiling guns, apparently, and was, predictably, taken into custody because when you’re a famous, high profile criminal, and you’re stockpiling weapons, that’s what happens. From the reports that I’ve read, however, it seems to me that Vargy Varg is actually innocent of doing anything wrong this time. Nevertheless, Varg now has one more arrest on his record. Wonder what the French black metal guys think of him?

Varg Quits Black Metal. Again.

Apparently everyone’s favorite church arsonist is also throwing in the towel in terms of composing black metal, again. As anyone who’s followed Burzum for longer than twenty minutes can tell you, this is not an uncommon occurrence. He’ll probably be back. But just in case he’s not, Varg’s played himself out with this little ditty, which is, once again, quite lovely.

The Lid Finally Blows Off on Blake Judd’s Shenanigans

Blake Judd, notorious frontman of Nachtmystium, found himself having a very bad year indeed despite an apparently successful comeback last year that I actually blogged about. Silencing Machine made it onto my list of best albums for 2012, utilizing an original approach that blended black metal and industrial music, Mr. Judd got married, and everyone was so happy to hear that he was finally recovering from his legendary drug addiction. This year, Nachtmystium has been put on indefinite hiatus, rumors are circulating that Judd stole the name and project behind Hate Meditation (whose new release, Scars, is not bad at all), apparently his wife divorced him, and last I heard, he was behind bars in Cook County jail for ripping off countless people who never got the merch and stuff that he’d promised them, having tied up all of their money in… something. Projects. Drugs. Who knows. I don’t. All I know is that I met the guy last year, and he was really cheerful and nice to me and J, and I am sad to hear about all this, because it always sucks to find that people are not as nice as you thought they were.

Kim Carlsson Dyes Hypothermia Shirts With His Own Blood

Yeah. So that happened early in the year. Fascinating stuff; I decided, however, that Kim and I are just not close enough yet for me to feel comfortable owning a shirt that’s been mixed in his blood. And by that I mean that I don’t know him at all. They are one of a kind anyway. (And there aren’t any more available. Kim has, obviously, a limited amount of materials to work with).

Watain Writes A Ballad

And it’s pretty damned good, I think.

Rest in Peace, Euronymous

I didn’t do a special post in his honor like I do normally, probably because August 10^th was about the epicenter of my depressive meltdown that had been oncoming for about a year and a half. Nevertheless, we should always strive to remember our fallen brothers. Hail, Euronymous. Rest in peace.

***

And yes, actually, I’m listening through the new Horna right now, trying to scramble to hear as much new black metal as I can to draft your best of list. (Why does this track sound like Watain?)

-Hagalaz

Maryland Deathfest XI: Merch Haul, Musings, and More Pics

This was my first year going to Maryland Deathfest, and I learned that it is a metal WONDERLAND. Literally just about any merch you could possibly want you can find, including stuff from Deathspell Omega (if you were looking for Lifelover you were out of luck, however. I didn’t see any of their stuff- I was looking for a patch). And for a girl working on her battle jacket, it was a veritable treasure trove. I bought a ton of patches, many of them from my friend, who I tried to buy from as much as I could.

Yeah, that’s a Dimmu Borgir patch. They were my first black metal band, and their old stuff is awesome, don’t pretend like it’s not.

I also got several shirts, but not as many as I probably would have gotten if I had bought all my stuff early (lesson learned. I would have a Candlemass patch too if I’d done that). Nevertheless, I found stuff I couldn’t find easily, like a rad Teitanblood shirt, a TDB shirt (orders from the Netherlands are not cheap), and special edition MDF Antaeus and Aosoth shirts. And Morbid. Always more Morbid.

Teitanblood

I love the back of this thing.

Antaeus special print for MDF.

Noevdia. ❤

More Dead.

Aosoth special MDF shirt. This thing is gorgeous. Also I am trying to buy more not-black shirts.

The back has the Order of the Nine Angles sigil.

The Devil’s Blood. I love their artwork.

I promised musings too, so I will give that. I think the weekend overall went really well, minus the drive back (coffee+convenience store fare+no sleep= H feeling like she is strung out on something). I did have a few observations though. First of all, the festival really needs to be organized a little better. Vinterland had to be pushed back, and Pentagram and Venom getting cut off- I understand that there was nothing that could have been done about these things, but I think some kind of announcement might have mitigated the frustration a bit, especially in the case of the latter, in which people rioted. The lines going into and out of the festival could have been handled a little better, and considering that I heard/saw lots of complaints about gate security inappropriately frisking some of the girls (never happened to me or A, by the way), and harassing people, I would suggest screening the people they have working the gates a little better. (The guys in the festival were awesome, on the contrary. Especially the dude playing air-bass and helping people crowdsurf. That guy deserves an award for best security dude ever.)

I also heard rumors that this might be the last year at that venue, and that might be okay. I liked the smallness of the festival, especially considering that I get freaked out in really huge crowds sometimes, but it really might have outgrown itself this time. Especially with having to wait in line for over an hour for re-entry on Sunday. Also, I didn’t have tickets to the punk stage this year (I need to do that next time), but my understanding was that it was about .5 miles away. That’s a little far, especially if you are trying to run back and forth a lot, so making the venues closer would be really beneficial.

The music was awesome. Needs more thrash; needs more grindcore. That is all. Of course, with all the doom and black metal it was theoretically my year.

Here are some more miscellaneous pics of me and my pals showing off our MPLS/St. Paul related digs and general tomfoolery.

The poster from this year was pretty freaking sweet.

I don’t know if you can tell from the pin, but we are big Devil’s Blood fans around here.

\m/

Me looking like a big ol’ dweeby fangirl in my False shirt. MPLS metal is my fave.

 

Chicks dig Into the Void.

Next, Kylesa, before I forget my commentary on that. Then Aosoth, I promise. I have been running around watching friends’ bands all weekend, but I am home with some spare time for a while.

-Hagalaz

Maryland Deathfest XI Recap (Part III)

Part I (Friday) and Part II (Saturday) are both available for your perusal.

The lines outside of the festival Sunday provided another instance of the poor organization that seemed to plague the festival all weekend, or at least concerning entering and exiting the venue. We left the hotel a little after 2p because we wanted to see Glorior Belli at 3:30, and were hoping to mill around and buy merch beforehand. We waited over an hour in a huge line, all full of people there for re-entry. It was really frustrating. After about 45 minutes they opened a second line, and then things moved a little more swiftly. It actually worked out fine for us- we got there just in time to catch all of Glorior Belli’s set- but there were a lot of people really excited to see Speedwolf and Cruciamentum who missed them because of the line.

Glorior Belli’s set was really good; their later, more experimental bluesy black metal is sometimes hit or miss for me, although I do find it interesting. It was very good live, however, and even though I still got hints of their vocalist’s smugness during the set (which rubs me the wrong way a bit), he more than made up for it by climbing down in front of the stage and shaking people’s hands, giving hugs, etc. during the last song. They played a fine set, despite the fact that teatime is really not ideal for black metal.

Glorior Belli

Next we caught a little bit of Midnight’s set while mingling and shopping. I have seen their shirts everywhere recently, but I haven’t ever really paid that much attention to them. They were a lot of fun, however (I LOVE the blackened thrash thing), and I found their executioner’s hoods endearing. Pagan Altar was our next big set, and I sat for part of it to rest my legs (that concrete is a bitch). They were fantastic and a fun throwback. It was really great to see that they are still doing so well; J said that Sabbath should fire Ozzy and hire Terry Jones instead.

[I didn’t get pics of them. Too short. Sorry.]

We shopped and ate during the next set, and then went to get in line for Sleep, who J was really excited about seeing. I was excited too, as I know what a big deal it is to see Sleep right now, but I would not have needed to be up front for it. There was, as expected, a LOT of smoke, which, by this point, was starting to wear on me a little (I don’t smoke, and although a lot of my friends do, three days of inhaling other people’s weed and cigarettes was beginning to make me a little crazy). Also, for some bizarre reason, people started shoving and actually getting kind of violent when the band started playing. Someone really ought to explain stoner metal to those kids. I had just bought a special edition double LP and had thought that during Sleep’s set I wouldn’t be hard pressed to protect it, but people in the crowd where we were standing were being really douchy and shoving, and I was just about at the end of my rope. Couple that with my frustrations over something that is neither here nor there (Internets, you don’t need to know about my personal life), and A dragged me to the back of the crowd before I fucking killed someone. Which is good. That would have been a real buzzkill.

So I saw Sleep, and I was so angry I barely digested any of it. I tried, once I was out of the crush, to focus really hard on enjoying it, however, and I really loved the parts of the set for which I was able to relax a little. I’m really grateful I got to see Sleep perform, and I wish it had been under a little better circumstances.

Sleep. Downtown Baltimore gets a contact high.

[Part of Dragonaut. But you can see, I think, why I was upset with the crowd.]

Matt Pike, incidentally, stayed in our hotel and glowered at me in the coffee shop.

Pentagram was up next, and their set was going fine. J and I didn’t stay for the whole thing, but A did and said that it was really good; Bobby Liebling was… standing and singing okay, and is in better shape, I would say, than Ozzy, but the heroin years have not been kind. J said he thought it was depressing, and I said that I was still a little pissy and wanted to watch a dude drenched in blood screaming to me about Satan, so we went to catch Ascension’s set across the way.

Pentagram.

Am I glad we did. Ascension is from Germany, and I didn’t know that, nor did I know who they were at all, really. They were my diamond in the rough. Ascension is relatively new, and only has one album out, but they play really good black metal and are extremely charismatic onstage. We wandered over there in hopes for something that was going to be a little more lively than Pentagram (who I am still glad I watched a couple of songs of), and they were easily my best whim of the weekend. Maybe I should do a post for them?

Ascension

I liked their stage decor.

[Surprise! awesome black metal.]

As the night started to wind down, we went to hunt down a good place to watch Venom. Basically there was none; EVERYONE was there to see Venom (obviously). I did manage to get a spot on a curb though, where I could see Cronos well, and since he is the founding member who is left, that was the important part to me. I am amazed by how bulky he is; I always thought he was little but his biceps are tremendous! They played a mix of old and new stuff, but we got to hear Warhead and Black Metal and Live Like an Angel, which I guess is the best bit (although I had desperately hoped for Rip Ride. Sigh). Things were going fine and dandy right up until 11p sharp, when all of a sudden there was no sound.

Venom!

Alright. So I couldn’t see much other than Cronos, but he’s the important part, right?

Apparently there was a new city ordinance or something that said that the music had to stop at 11p, as in AT 11 seriously we aren’t kidding, and so they stopped it. (A told me later that Pentagram’s set was cut a little short too; I saw somewhere else that Sleep went over 20 minutes and that was what backed things up. I have no idea what happened. I was just watching Venom, minding my own business.) Either way, the crowd was incredibly upset, because Venom, and then there was a bottle neck in the gate on the way out (the fest is over. Open more gates), and then when we got to the front of the gate there was a scuffle, and some security dudes throwing some crust punk kid against the pavement, and screaming and yelling. I was running to the side to get away from… whatever was happening, and I kid you not, a beer bottle shattered about three feet from my head. So A, J, and I took off to get to the other side of the wall (so we could gawk at what was happening, of course), but a security guard told us to go away. And on the way back to the hotel, like 8 or 10 cop cars passed us, so it must have turned into quite the kerfluffle.

We made it back to the hotel safely, however, and drove back the next day. 24 hours. With me going 30 hours without sleep which, I learned, is something I should never, ever, do again (sleep deprivation makes me paranoid and weepy).

One more post of this, with more pictures and people and merch, and then I promise I’ll talk about Kylesa.

-Hagalaz

Maryland Deathfest XI Recap (Part II)

Part I is here, if you are interested.

Saturday afternoon we headed over early to catch Kommandant’s set. On the way there, we were intercepted by some angry metal dudes who told me and A that we needed to take our jackets back to the hotel, as they weren’t letting in anyone with studs or spikes on their jackets. My battle jacket has studs, but no spikes, but the guy said that they were turning people away even for the tiny little circular studs that A had on her jacket. So, lamenting that no one would know how kvlt we were, we made the sad trek back to the hotel to put our jackets up. We tried to warn people along the way, but only some of them believed us.

The jacket fiasco did allow for a short re-entry line, however, and we got in just in time to catch all of Kommandant. Complete with podium and gasmasks, their stage presence was daunting. A commented that she was really impressed with the visual aspect of the performance. Kommandant’s drummer was flanked by two snare drummers, and the band stood at attention between songs. Despite technical difficulties all throughout the set (they actually ended up shorting out 2 minutes before their allotted time was up), they were incredible, and I can’t wait to see them in St. Paul in a couple of months.

Kommandant

July 27th at Station 4, Minneapolis/St. Paul. Be there.

After spending a little more time wandering/shopping, we went back into the tent for Loss, a death/doom band from Nashville. They were fantastic- I love me some Southern doom- and I was amused when I realized that they asked me for directions to the fest at one point a couple of days earlier. I wish I could have focused a little more on their performance, but my left hip is a little twisted and was starting to feel wretched at that point from standing around on concrete so much. We ran back to the hotel for some ibuprofen after their set was over, and I was ready to go again having medicated. We were also able to get our battle jackets again, as they had started allowing people in with them on (something to do with Phil Anselmo having on his tour rider that he hates fun didn’t want people to have spikes on their clothing and wanted no moshing? I don’t really know what happened with that, but it made me completely apathetic about Down’s presence there).

Loss. So good. (Also, they are playing Stella Natura this year, so you lucky kids who can afford it can see them IN THE WOODS.)

We made it just in time to see Vinterland, who then got pushed back until 10p, so we took the opportunity to eat Vegan hotdogs (freaking yum) before I dragged everyone to Aosoth stupidly early so I could get a good spot. They. Were. Incredible. I got what I believe may be the best pictures I got all weekend during their set, and they played material from their new album as well as 1 & 5 from III. It was a very emotional experience to see that sort of orthodox black metal live, with Mkm kneeling onstage, hands tangled in the mic cord- chilling. Awesome.

Aosoth.

An arrow in heart…

Incredible.

After Aosoth completely destroyed me, J and I milled around and watched a little bit of Melvins before meeting up with A at Ihsahn’s set. I got to see King Buzzo’s hair live and I have seen enough of The Melvins now to say I have seen The Melvins, and they play here enough that I don’t despair of seeing them anytime soon. Unfortunately, they scheduled Ihsahn at the same time as Revenge; I don’t regret skipping Revenge for the former at all, but they are a band I would really like to see, and everything I have seen reports that they were great. That one will have to go back on the bucket list, I suppose.

Seeing Ihsahn was nuts. When he did the sound check, he did the exact same scream as in the beginning of I Am the Black Wizards, and I about lost my shit. I was really impressed with his band as well; the keyboardist had the most charisma of any keyboard player I have ever seen on stage. It was only the second time he had ever played in the U.S. as a solo artist, too, so it was a bit of a historical performance. The set was great and included The Grave, which may be my favorite track from Eremita. After the set, Ihsahn went over to the fence and signed autographs, met people, took pictures, etc. He signed my MDF ticket as well as a business card for A, and he shook my fingers through the fence. I’m still just a little stunned by it all, and pleased to say that Ihsahn is incredibly sweet and very gracious. It was awesome meeting him.

Ihsahn.

His keyboardist, who deserves a pic.

His glasses! 😀

Sweetest man ever.

Ahhhhhh! (Ignore my grubby nail polish)

I saw a little bit of Vinterland’s set in the post-meeting-fucking-Ihsahn haze, and it was nice to get a little melodic Swedish stuff into the weekend (still needs more thrash, though). Despite the crowd, I managed to push up to close to the front for Antaeus. If Aosoth was spiritual, Antaeus was purely visceral. Uhm.  I’m afraid my reaction to that live was not very ladylike. I watched the first 2/3 from the front, then moved to the back for the very end, where I kept myself together a little better. They dedicated Blood Libels to us (!) which was awesome. I still cannot believe I saw Antaeus and Aosoth on the same day, and with Ihsahn between them, this makes for pretty much one of the most emotional nights ever for me.

Antaeus.

Seeing these two sides of Mkm was kind of amazing.

Further back.

More later… (And I’d better get on it, too. Still have two more posts of this, Aosoth review, review of last eve’s Kylesa show, argh).

(Go to Part III.)

-Hagalaz

Maryland Deathfest XI Recap (Part I)

Maryland freaking Deathfest. Oh my gosh. This past weekend was completely nuts and a time bubble- I still can’t really believe that me and my friend A arrived in Baltimore a week ago. Between broken jetways, reassigned gates and hotel room confusion, we are lucky that we got there and got settled in at all. But we did, and ordered sushi delivered by a young man who told us that he was “the guy in the black shirt with the white writing” and couldn’t seem to understand why we couldn’t find him on the street outside of the hotel in the swarm of metalheads. The rest of the evening involved light napping, and after J arrived, a trip to a WalMart in the middle of a darkened field, which was only mildly terrifying.

Baltimore, I have noted, is a kind of scary place when you are from rural Oklahoma.

 We stayed at the Radisson Lord Baltimore, and even though they told me when I booked the room that we would have two double beds, we ended up with only a single king bed and had to take turns for who slept on the floor. The elevators were also super slow pretty much all weekend, and kept going down to the lower levels, where there was weird music playing at one point. Creepy. Anyway, the hotel itself was fine minus the really, really annoying thing with the bed and the understaffed coffee shop that made for super slow service in the mornings; the staff were super nice, for instance.

The view was not so great.

Beautiful downtown Baltimore!

Also this was weird.

So Thursday evening we retreated back to the hotel, snacks and coolers in tow. We decided to get some food for the room so that we could save money on food at the fest. It was helpful, but you should remember to restock the ice so your strawberries don’t end up floating in lukewarm water. Then we went to sleep trying not to think about the fact that we were missing Bolt Thrower.

The next day we woke up late but mostly rested from the previous day’s travel and stuffed our faces with Cliff bars and snacks before heading to the Former Sonar Compound. The primary goal of the day was to see Pig Destroyer and Carcass, but we also caught part of Benediction’s set. I didn’t know who they were, but they hadn’t played in the States since the mid-90s, and I really enjoyed what I saw of their show.

Benediction, Death Metal from the U.K.

Then we went to get up front for Pig Destroyer, who were everything I had hoped they would be. A big pit formed, but it was the fun kind in which no one is actually getting hurt or being assholes. They also had a female vocalist doing guest vocals on a couple of songs; I’m not familiar enough with Pig Destroyer to know for sure who she was, but I’m assuming she might be Katherine “Kat” Katz, who did guest vox on Book Burner. The vibe in the crowd was fantastic, and the set was a lot of fun.

Pig Destroyer!

Being short sucks.

Female guest vocalist.

That was some pit.

[It is her, apparently. So much fun. I miss going to grindcore shows.]

We then wandered around for a bit, catching glimpses of Repulsion’s set while meandering through the endless booths full of merch. I had a discussion with an enthusiastic shirtless dude named Zack and his friend about Satanic black metal, which was fun. I also got to meet Annick Giroux, who published the Hellbent for Cooking metal cookbook, which I have made things from and really enjoyed pouring over. Also at the Bazillion Points table was a guy who was extremely stoked about my Arne patch that I’d gotten with my Slayer Mag Diaries and snapped a picture of it. They had awesome aprons for sale, and I did not buy one quickly enough (alas!), which was the first of many lessons in buying what you want while you can get it- the shirts sold out of small sizes pretty quickly in a lot of cases, and I missed my chance at Mgla and Candlemass patches. They also had Layna Dawes’ new book, What Are YOU Doing Here?, which I really wanted a copy of and planned on buying Sunday, but they had shut down the table early and I ended up not getting a copy of it there.

Carcass was… was Carcass. I’m still a little dumbfounded that I saw Carcass do anything at all, although my height (or lack thereof) kept me from seeing most of it. They sounded incredible, and put on a great show, at least for what I saw of it. I had to cut out a little early, but it sounded good still from outside the gates, and the crustpunk kids who lurk in the parking lot seemed to enjoy it too.

Carcass!

It occurred to me that I could hold my phone above my head and manage to get ok photos despite my short legs.

One of the most fun random things about MDF for me was the people you meet while you are milling around/ watching sets. I met a cool English dude in the Carcass crowd who told me all about Roadburn this past year and offered me some blackberry vodka (No, thank you, I know it is a trap and does not taste like blackberries at all), and dance-partied with a dude named James from Ottawa from the Pig Destroyer pit. That pit was also my first sighting of Chicken Man, who wore his chicken suit faithfully all weekend. Also a young man dressed as a taco handed me a flyer from his band Autolatry, which I told him I would plug wherever I could. You can check out their bandcamp here.

Taco Man!

Aaaand that’s about it for Day I. (And that was the short day). I’ll be back again soon with more stories from MDF, including how I have developed a love of Vegan hotdogs and how I saw Aosoth AND Antaeus within 3 hours of each other.

(Go to Part II.)

Until then,

Hagalaz

Maryland Death Fest Announces the Final List of Bands

[This info was gleaned from MDF’s Facebook and website]

Oh, excitement! Maryland Death Fest has finalized the band listing for 2013, and the Melvins, Cobalt, and Deiphago have all been added to the list! Also Ascension, who I am not familiar with but have been informed that I should be, so I will go about making that familiarity happen.

The final list of bands is below:

@ Former Sonar Compound

!T.O.O.H.! (Czech Republic)
ABIGAIL (Japan)
AHUMADO GRANUJO (Czech Republic)
AMBASSADOR GUN
ANHEDONIST
ANTAEUS (France)
AOSOTH (France)
ASCENSION (Germany)
ASTHMA CASTLE
BENEDICTION (UK)
BOLT THROWER (UK)
BROKEN HOPE
CARCASS (UK)
CARPATHIAN FOREST (Norway)
COBALT
CONVULSE (Finland)
CRUCIAMENTUM (UK)
DEIPHAGO (Philippines/Costa Rica)
DOWN
EVOKEN
EXODUS
GLORIOR BELLI (France)
GRIDE (Czech Republic)
IHSAHN (Norway)
INGROWING (Czech Republic)
INIQUITY (Denmark)
INTEGRITY
KOMMANDANT
LOSS
MANILLA ROAD
(the) MELVINS
MIDNIGHT
MORGION
NECROPSY
THE OBSESSED
PAGAN ALTAR (UK)
PELICAN
PENTAGRAM
PIG DESTROYER
REPULSION
REVENGE (Canada)
RIGHTEOUS PIGS
SLEEP
SPEEDWOLF
UFOMAMMUT (Italy)
VENOM (UK)
VINTERLAND (Sweden)
WEEDEATER

@ Baltimore Soundstage:

CITIZENS ARREST
CONVERGE
DISCIPLES OF CHRIST
EDDIE BROCK
FEASTEM (Finland)
FULL OF HELL
HEARTLESS
HELLSHOCK
ILSA
INFEST
IRON LUNG
KROMOSOM (Australia)
LIKE RATS
MAGRUDERGRIND
MASSGRAV (Sweden)
OLD LINES
ROTTEN SOUND (Finland)
SETE STAR SEPT (Japan)
TINNER (Finland)
VITAMIN X (Netherlands)
WAKE
WEEKEND NACHOS

Tickets will go on sale starting next Monday, October 15^th, and it seems like at this point it will only be multi-day passes. Individual day passes will be available when they figure out who is playing where, which should be by the end of the month, although they will have the Thursday bands listed on Monday when the tickets are initially released (if my understanding is correct, the Thursday venue is indoors and thus smaller).

Guys, I’ve been saving up for this and it has SUCKED, because I am therefore technically BROKE, but I am looking forward to making that technicality a reality soon, and thus fulfilling the destiny that so many black metal fans have done before me and seeing Venom play live oh my. (Also Aosoth, Antaeus, Carpathian Forest, Ihsahn, Sleep, the list goes on… holy crap that lineup is great). So buy yourself a ticket to MDF, friends, and mayhap I will run into you there.

Also, please check out my post from Sunday about the lack of an underground support system for touring bands in the US. We really need to get something together, and I’m willing to throw whatever meager power I can muster with this little blog to make something of that nature happen. You can find it here.

-Hagalaz